Thank you” Anabelle smiled at the school’s nurse, she hung out with the nurse every lunch since she wasn’t a social person. “I’m glad I can stay here for lunch and after school.” “You should try to make some friends Anabelle-san” the nurse told Anabelle. “Maybe you should try being more social.” “Sensei…..” Anabelle didn’t really want to make friends; she had a hard time with her parents and with her reputation as a shy, lonely girl. “Maybe……” “Oh come on Anabelle” the nurse patted Anabelle on her back. She wasn’t happy about the “making friends” topic. She left the nurses office with her backpack and books in her hand, immediately some groups of people noticed her, she could hear whispers from them, maybe about her. She wasn’t popular but she was usually the talk of the school, everyone talked about the girl who always was with the nurse. She headed home afterwards; she always walked home since her parents were busy at work. “Mother, father, I’m home” Anabelle opened the front door to her home. “Anabelle? You’re late again” her mother hit her shoulder with a bag full of ice “I told you to come home early, but yet again you came late.” Her mother grabbed her backpack and slammed it into the wall; all of Anabelle’s books and papers flew out and settled on the floor. Anabelle rubbed the spot where her mother had hit her. “I’m going” Anabelle picked up her backpack and all of the supplies that had escaped and went into her room; she had her own closet of food, clothes and anything else she needed. She took out the hair tie that held her hair in a side ponytail on the right side while her bangs were up to stop them from going in front of her face, she wore a simple school uniform that consists of a purple jacket with a white collared shirt underneath, a black tie, a light purple skirt that was half way to her knees, long socks that went a bit above her knees, brownish colored boots and a choker which she wore as a cloth that wrapped around her neck a bit above her shirt. She had green eyes and light brown wavy hair. She lay on her bed which was a white mattress, white covers and one white pillow. It was all her parents would provide her as a bed, but she dealt with it. She had a window that was between the garden and her room with curtains, she had a ceiling fan, although it broke years ago. “Anabelle, can you come over and help with dinner?” Her father called for her, her specialty was medicine, she wasn’t an expert cook but she could make herself food with some help. “Coming” Anabelle stood up and walked to the kitchen avoiding her mother who was drinking out of a beer bottle. “Father I’m here, what is it you need?” “Anabelle, can you make cookies?” Her father knew she wasn’t good at cooking, but he was determined to teach her. “Father, you know I can’t cook.” “Just put them in the oven then, it’s not that hard!” He yelled and hit Anabelle on her face with a towel that had been wet and threw it at her jacket; her face was soaking along with her clothes. Anabelle quickly put the dough into the oven and closed the door. “Set the time, um, thirty minutes.” She set the timer and tried to quietly walk past her mother. “Anabelle” her mother stopped her before she could leave “can you get me another one?” “But, you’ve had three already.” “I said another one!” Her mother stood up and tried to slam the bottle at Anabelle’s face but missed and shattered against the wall. The broken shards went into her eyes and she screamed. “That’s your punishment.” Anabelle ran to her room.

“You’ll be fine Anabelle-san” the school nurse assured her “you won’t be able to see for a while but they should heal soon, I have some spare glasses if you want.” “Okay, I can’t see now so it would help, thank you.” “Try these” the nurse handed Anabelle a pair of glasses, they were oval shaped and only covered half of her eye’s length. “Thank you” she smiled at the nurse. “Now Anabelle, there are some people who want to see you, they’re in your grade as well” the nurse opened the door, ten or more people came rushing in, they were a part of one of the groups that were always standing near the nurse’s office and watching Anabelle, they came in and immediately started asking questions. “Anabelle-san, are you okay?” “What happened?” “Can we be friends?” They circled Anabelle, these were the people who Anabelle thought weren’t into her, but it seemed as though they liked her. “See Anabelle, lots of people want to be your friend” the nurse said through the crowd “what do you think?” “Yeah, I think it would work out great” Anabelle replied. At lunch Anabelle sat next to her new friends, there were a lot too, by the minute others would join in, it made her feel at home and like home that she should have. Her parents wouldn’t change though, they remained the same. They didn’t apologize for the damage they did to her nor were they happy that Anabelle had friends, they continued to beat on her and each day it got worse, they didn’t stop at physical or mentally hurting her, no, they tried to kill her many times, Anabelle didn’t want anyone else to know about what her parents were doing to her, she kept her pain a secret. She would usually say “my parents aren’t bad people, they just do things at the wrong time” but it wasn’t true, they were bad people and they did bad things all time. It was the same every day from then on, she would be happy with her friends during the day but at night she would be miserable with her parents, if they didn’t care about Anabelle why would they keep her around? The answer was simple; they needed someone to beat on since they couldn’t beat on each other. “Anabelle-san” one of her friends started a conversation “what happened to your right eye?” Her right eye was covered but not her left eyes though she still wore the glasses. “Nothing, its partially healed” she responded “but I still can’t see so I’m working on getting my left eye to see better like the right.” Her right eye was still unable to see without glasses but this way she could use her bangs for something. “Hey, what about the side ponytail?” “It’s just a hairstyle, nothing important.” They all laughed at the comment, even Anabelle found her comment amusing, of course it was just a joke and they were the kind of people to make that kind of joke.

“Mother, father, I’m home” Anabelle entered the house expecting another beating just like every day. Though it was different this time. “Can you come over here?” Her father asked they were sitting at the dining table. “Ok” Anabelle set her backpack on the floor near the door. She sat with her parents, they explained that they were moving away across the border, Anabelle was shocked at the news, she had made new friends and her parents were going to move again? “Mother, father, I finally get friends and people who like me and you want us to move again? Do you want me to be miserable all my life?” Her parents had a shocked look themselves, “no, if you’re moving away that’s fine, I can live with a friend, but I’m not leaving.” “Anabelle!” Her mother yelled “you are going with us no matter what” she grabbed Anabelle’s right arm, she was going to hit Anabelle when Anabelle grabbed a pen and stabbed her mother’s hand so that her mother would let go of her, the pen went through her mother’s hand. Blood dripped down from the wound and onto the table. “Anabelle!” Her father stood up from his chair. “I don’t care anymore!” Anabelle kicked her father away, she started crying, she hurt someone, but they deserved to be hurt, they hurt her for years and she hurt them for less than an hour. “This is your punishment” she took another pen, this one was empty though, she started swinging like it was a sword until her father had cuts all over his body along with her mother. “I never want to see you again” she murmured, she did a final blow on her father, one stab in the neck then one to her mother with the same pen. Blood was everywhere, her hands were dripping with blood, the blood of her parents mixed with the pen ink, it became dark red, it was satisfying but at the same time what would her friends think of her when they heard she killed her own parents? Would they still like her? Was she going to be insane, just like her aunt? She had two sides now, one is the Anabelle who is sweet and could never hurt anyone, and the other is the Anabelle who killed her parents without hesitating, she didn’t want to do any more damage than she has. She would live alone, with only the corpses of her parents which she planned on burying in the garden along with their old pets. She didn’t have to suffer anymore, that made her happy, for one moment it seemed like she was insane, she laughed, even with everything she had done and that had been done to her, she found her past entertaining now, it didn’t matter anymore nor will it ever. “It’s over! It’s finally over!” She laughed so hard she thought she would die laughing.

For the next few days she felt sadness at home, she was alone, for a while she regretted killing her parents, but she would find happiness in that, she was alone but she wasn’t being hurt anymore, and that’s what counted. Sometimes she would sit and stare at her parent’s corpses, stained with dark red blood, their corpses still had the markings on them, the pens were engraved into their corpse, she didn’t want to pull them out and it would be too much for her to remove the weapon than to leave it there. Eventually she buried the bodies with the hole she used one of her neighbor’s dogs to dig, it was deep, too deep for the police to dig down and she had to use a bucket and rope to get the dogs out. She cleaned up the blood and threw away the towels that were used to clean up the mess. Soon it was like her parents were never killed, she survived alone for years and got used to it, though, she remembered her parents voices and they haunted her for weeks until she forgot the sound of their voices and continued living like they didn’t exist.

For quite a few days it seemed like no one really cared, no one asked which was a relief to her, though it did seem like they had noticed something different about her, she happier than usual and sometimes she would have one moment when she would be sad then she would keep going on the subject she was on. They got suspicious of her after a while. “Anabelle” one of them decided to ask “what happened with your parents? You’ve been having some mood swings.”

“What do you mean?” She asked them “I’m perfectly fine.”

“I’m not sure why but something has been bothering you, we’re friends we can tell.”

“I’m fine, get off my case!”

They were getting more and more suspicious of her each time they brought it up, she wouldn’t tell them the truth even though they demanded to know, what would they say if they knew what had happened? There was no evidence of her parents death, so it shouldn’t have mattered but the memory was engraved in her, she couldn’t let go of the fact that she had killed her parents, but….did it matter? Yes, it did, they were her only friends, the friends that she had obtained, the people who cared for her. So would they support her?

The memory of her parents haunted her, her dreams were the same each night, it wouldn’t stop, she kept seeing her parents death, the blood that was spilled, the anger that drover her insane, the way she didn’t seem to care anymore. It shouldn’t have bothered her any more than it did; her punishment was to keep seeing the same event until she forgot and she couldn’t forget with her dreams. She didn’t want to remember, and one day she confessed. Her friends were shocked but relived that she told them.

“I can’t believe you did that, you don’t seem like the type to kill people” one of them said.

“Not so loud, the school will be able to hear you! Anabelle, don’t worry, your secret is safe with us” another one said.

“Thank you” Anabelle smiled, she was able to let go of the fantasy that her friends would not be her friends anymore, they remained her friends but some were scared of her, she had killed her own parents, how else could they react?

Anabelle continued to live as a regular school girl, though her insane side did come out at times. When word went out in the school people became afraid of her and others bullied her by saying that she was weak, but she solved the problem and killed those who wanted to hurt her as her parents did. Her reputation changed from the shy, quiet girl to the girl who killed her parents, the word was all over the school and then others outside of school herd about it and she became wanted for the murder of her parents. She ran away from the area then, her friends didn’t know where she had gone, it was a mystery to them, she had gone across the city into an area that didn’t know her. People from her old home stopped looking for her after they thought that she was dead and buried where her parents were, after a few weeks it seemed like she never existed herself, her home was torn down and was rebuilt into a mansion where her garden was covered. “Idiots” Anabelle laughed “they’re dumber than my parents.” “You had a reputation, then you lost it, how do you feel about that?” Another person who was by her side asked. “I don’t care, even so this so called “outbreak” of these creatures will kill everyone soon enough.” “It’s all over the news, like you were.” “Stop it right there, we’re done with the talk about me, come on, lessons are in an hour” Anabelle and her friend ran off.

Favorite Quote:Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, or fabulous?

Favorite Quote:“If ever there is tomorrow when we're not together.. there is something you must always remember. you are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. but the most important thing is, even if we're apart.. i'll always be with you.”

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